About
Unison Drilling Inc. is an independent, family-owned company specializing in oil and gas drilling. In 1985 a partnership was formed by Maurice Stricker and Annie Mello (brother & sister) with one rig located in South Texas. Today, Unison Drilling Inc. currently operates seven rigs drilling for oil & gas ranging in horse power from 450 to 1000 HP. and depths from 4,700 feet to 14,000 feet.
At Unison Drilling safety is our highest priority. We are members of DISA, a third-party drug testing and monitoring company. We are also members of ISNetworld. We do company-wide OSHA certifications every January even if some cards are not expired. Our safety team is highly trained and are rotated in and out of OSHA “Train the Trainer” classes throughout the year.
As a family-owned company Ms. Annie and her son Michael keep a tight rein on professional personnel and equipment maintenance. Here at Unison, we recognize each rig hand as a valuable team member and vital to the success of every well.
All new hires with experience go through orientation depending on their certifications, then put to work in our yard for two weeks to evaluate them before we put them on a rig. New hires with no experience go through the same orientations and then into our training program. They work in our yard for a couple of months then on our training rig as a 6th man daylight trainee.
They stay on the training rig until the Tool Pusher reports they are ready to go as a floor hand on another rig. We do not have to hire often, as 90% of our hands have been with us between two and 28 years. Unison Drilling has a reputation for good iron and good people.
At Unison Drilling we have our own Trucking Fleet to move our own rigs. This way we don’t have to wait in line for someone else to move us.
Unison employs our own general mechanics to take care of all of our vehicles, and rig mechanics who specialize on drilling rigs such as Rotary Tables, Drawworks, Brakes, Clutches, and Pumps. This helps to keep any downtime to a minimum.
Unison Drilling Inc. is committed to be the best contract drilling company. With quality equipment, experienced crews, and professional management working closely with our customers, we believe with hard work and integrity, Unison will continue to serve South Texas for years to come.
Our History
Maurice Stricker and Annie Mello established Unison Drilling, Inc., in March 1985 in Devine, Texas where is still headquartered today. As children, Annie and Maurice worked for their father's water well drilling business, and Annie received her "schooling" on drilling equipment – learning the language and terminology used around drilling rigs. The family's eight children - five boys and three girls - were all roughnecks on their father's drilling rig at one time or other.
When Annie and Maurice became partners in the drilling business they began searching for their first rig, driving to Oklahoma, Kansas, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi before finally leasing a rig from a Mississippi contractor. Nine months later they purchased their first rig. Maurice loved attending oil field auctions to buy drilling equipment. Annie sometimes accompanied him, though she didn't much care for the auctions.
"I just enjoyed being with him," she remembers. "Even though I was his sister, he would take the time to explain how something worked, or why it would not work. Once he sent me to an auction in Odessa by myself to buy a rotary. I thought I had made a good buy until we got it back to the yard and Maurice looked it over. He told me the only thing he would do with that rotary table was to set it in the front yard and plant flowers in it. After that, he never sent me to another auction."
When Maurice was killed in an auto accident in 1994, Annie arranged to have his body hauled to the little country cemetery in Moore, Texas, on the bed of his 1991 Peterbilt haul truck.
"I think we made the funeral director a little uneasy, but I knew Maurice would have fired me if I hired a hearse to transport his body when he had plenty of trucks to do the job," she says.
After Maurice's death, Annie decided to carry on the drilling business instead of selling the two rigs they owned at that time. With the help of her husband, Anthony; her son, Michael; her brother, Dwaine; and her tool-pusher, Clement Wofford, Unison Drilling has continued to grow. The company now has 13 rigs drilling in the South Texas area.
"I don't plan on becoming a big drilling company," Annie says. "I want to stay small. I like knowing exactly where my rigs are working and knowing my employees by name and face. I like knowing every piece of equipment on my rigs and where every dollar is spent. "I can't wait to get to heaven so I can talk with Maurice. I think by now I could teach him a few things about the drilling business."
